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Updated: June 12, 2025
To halt on the heights was impossible, for the land was waterless; an orderly retreat was perhaps discountenanced by the difficulties of the country over which he had just passed and the distance of the last watering-place which he had left, while to retire at the first sight of the longed-for foe would not have inspired his newly remodelled army with much confidence in themselves or their general.
The march to-day was very trying to the poor horses, being chiefly over rotten melon-hole country, of a yellow clayey soil, timbered with stunted bloodwood and pandanus, the rain pouring down all day. At two miles from camp a large creek was crossed containing a little rain water, and subsequently nine or ten small deep waterless creeks, their beds too sandy to be retentive.
Trench heard of a man slipping out from Wadi Halfa, crossing the Nile and wandering with the assumed manner of a lunatic southwards, starving and waterless, until one day he was snapped up by a Mahdist caravan and dragged to Dongola as a spy. And at Dongola things had happened of which the mere mention made Trench shake.
When, therefore, it had been found by a few experiences Talana Hill, Elandslaagte, Belmont and Graspan, in all of which the kopje bore a principal part in the scheme of defence that the British soldier could not be stopped by them alone, the Boers, without abandoning the kopjes, reinforced them where the ground allowed by utilising the beds of the streams, which except in time of flood are nearly waterless.
Eastward a belt of trees divides the dunes from a hard stony plain built upon with granite hills; westward the desert stretches for fifty-eight waterless miles to Mahobey and Berber on the Nile, a desert so flat that the merest tuft of grass knee-high seems at the distance of a mile a tree promising shade for a noonday halt, and a pile of stones no bigger than one might see by the side of any roadway in repair achieves the stature of a considerable hill.
I was unaware of the very existence of the great Gulf of Carpentaria. But were it not for having had to steer north to get out of the waterless plains, I might possibly have reached the north- eastern coast of the continent in due time, avoiding the Roper River altogether.
It was at this juncture that we lost our little dog, a pet that had journeyed everywhere with us; when search failed we gave it up for lost, and drew mournful pictures of the dear creature dying in agonies in the desert, foodless and waterless.
The trail dropped down through sage-brush, just as it always did in the California we had known; the mountains rose with the fur-like dark-olive effect of the coast ranges; the sun beat hot. We had left the enchanted land. The trail was very steep and very long, and took us finally into the country of dry brown grasses, gray brush, waterless stony ravines, and dust.
Where petroleum oil can be cheaply obtained, say for twopence per gallon, one of the Otto Cycle Oil Engines, for powers up to 20 indicated horse-power, can be advantageously employed. These engines have the advantage of being a self-contained power, requiring neither chimney nor steam boiler, and may be said to be a waterless power.
"And where is that, sir?" asked Pauline innocently, without taking her eyes from his face. "Utopia is situated in No-country, and its chief city is on the banks of the river Waterless." "Oh, Uncle Guy! how can you quiz me so unmercifully, when I ask you to explain things to me?" "Why, Pauline, I am answering your questions correctly.
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